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Monday, March 28, 2016

I Testify

Miracles are not a thing of the past. They happen every day.
Miracle's are not just for a select few but for believers all over the world. I
have seen quite a few in my life. I’m not bragging or exaggerating, merely
telling the truth about things that I have seen and experienced. We all have a
purpose. Some of us know what our purpose is already while others will have to
die to themselves and practice putting on the mind of Christ to make room for
the Holy Spirit to work through them.

The first miracle that I remember was when I was nine years
old. It wasn’t long after I was born again and received the holy spirit and
started speaking in tongues and interpreting. It was after I had gone to bed. I
started having extremely bad lower abdominal pain. I felt like I had to
urinate. I went to the bathroom, crying and walking slowly from the pain, and
tried to urinate. All that came out were a few drops of blood. I cried even
more. I had not experienced anything like that before. It was quite
disconcerting. I called for my mom but my parents were busy. My dad told me if
I was sick it was because I had done something wrong and that I needed to go
back to bed and ask God to forgive me. I think that sometimes we can bring
illness on ourselves like from a poor diet but sometimes I think it’s just
life.

I went back to bed and I asked God to forgive me for
anything that I had done wrong. And I cried to him and spoke to him about the
miracles that I had heard about and read about in the bible. And I thanked him
for his kindness and unconditional love. I asked him to heal me. I cried myself
to sleep. The next morning, praise God, when I woke up I wasn’t in pain. I
didn’t hurt anywhere and when I went to the bathroom to urinate it was
perfectly normal. There was no blood, no pain and no burning. I was completely
healed. I praised God for healing me then and I do again and again, every time
I think about it.

Several years later my parents and I were white water
rafting at Nantahala Gorge, NC. I was a tom boy. I loved the outdoors. I could
put up a tent by myself, cook outside, build a fire, and I was always the one
who sat in the back of the canoe or raft and used my paddle to direct the course.
Well this river trip I blacked out not far from the rapids at the end of our
run. The river swooped me down river a ways and then I became trapped. The
hydraulics kept pulling me holding me under the water. I was right in the
center of the path that the canoe’s and rafts took to go through the falls. A
canoe came across the water above my head, then a raft, then another raft. When
the second raft crossed over me I held my arms straight up and dug my
fingernails into the bottom of the raft, like scratching down a chalkboard. I
didn’t let up and at the end of the raft the people in the back of the raft
grabbed my hands and pulled me in. I never swallowed any water. I never inhaled
any water. I didn’t panic. I wasn’t afraid and everything that happened was as though
it was in slow motion. When I was pulled into the raft I was excited and ready
to go back up the mountain and ride the rapids again. I praise God for his
protection.

A few years later I was at my boyfriend’s house. He’s my
husband now. I went to church with he and his family, his daddy was the pastor
of the church.I was at their house when
I felt a seizure coming on. I had been having seizures for a little over a
year. I went outside because I didn’t want for anyone to know what was going on
and I didn’t want to tell anyone that I had been having seizures because I
didn’t want anyone to know what happened to me that led to me having seizures.
He noticed me going out and suspected that there was something wrong and
followed me. He was the only one who I had told about the experience that I had
or the seizures that started occurring the same night of that experience. He
saw that I was having a seizure and took me in the house and laid me on the
couch in their living room. There were many church members there including
several elders of the church. As I came to my senses I could hear people
praying and feel their warm hands all over my body. My pastor told me that they
were praying for me to be healed from having seizures and asked me if I
believed that God would heal me. At that moment I was so overwhelmed with their
love and the love that I felt. I forgave the person who had hurt me and I told
him yes, I believe. Praise God, I have not had a seizure since then. God healed
me.

About six years later I had what my grandma told me was most
likely lock bowel. I couldn’t have a bowel movement. We were poor and I seldom
ever saw a doctor for anything. I tried laxatives, stool softners, castor oil
and an enema (which stayed inside instead of coming back out). It was bad. The
pain was bad. I became fevered. After my children had fallen to sleep I got in
bed and prayed for God to forgive me of anything that I may have done wrong and
I thanked him for being a loving and merciful God and praised him for things
that he had done for me in the past. I went to sleep. While I was asleep I had
a vision. I was in a cave which was a long tunnel. I could see light at the end
of the tunnel. I felt a breeze blowing in from the end of the tunnel and a soft
mist like dew landing on my skin. Then I saw a crib mobile and I heard a deep,
strong voice say, “It is not yet your time.” Then I awoke. I was no longer in
pain. I felt the urge to have a bowel movement and praise God my bowels started
moving.

Along that same time, after having my second child I started
bleeding very heavily. Nothing stopped it. One gynecologist told me that I
needed a partial hysterectomy. Another told me I needed a whole hysterectomy. I
wanted neither. I wanted to have a daughter. I asked my husband, Matthew, to
take me to his dad’s house so that we could ask his dad, who was still our
pastor, and his mom to pray for me. They did. About 18 months later I had a
baby girl. She is 21 now and sweet and beautiful and has a loving and generous
heart. I praise God for blessing me with her.

God has healed me and protected me many times, many more
than these. After a few years of repeatedly having tonsillitis I asked
Matthew’s parents to anoint me with oil and lay hands on me and pray for me to
be healed. They did. We prayed. Praise God I was healed. That same day my
tonsils came out in little pieces. I haven’t had tonsillitis since then. I went
to work one day with a really bad ear infection. So bad that the doctor that I
was working for asked an ear specialist whom he knew to see me that very day
and then asked the office manager to drive me. On the way there which was
almost an hour drive; the office manager, my mom and I prayed for me to be
healed and sang praises the rest of the way there. Praise God when the ear
specialist looked in my ear there was no sign of ear infection or nothing that
indicated that I had had an ear infection.

God has done many other miraculous and wonderful things for
me over the years. But I think that one of the most miraculous and
demonstrative of his protection was when I was suffering from back pain and
what followed it. I was in so much pain that I went to the doctor to find out
what was causing it. She x-rayed my mid back and found nothing. It looked
completely normal. I suffered with the pain for a long time, years. Then one
day due to heavy lifting and mopping with a heavy industrial mop the back of my
neck swelled. My doctor x-rayed it. Then she sent me to have an MRI done. Then
she sent me to see a neurosurgeon. The neurosurgeon looked at my MRI and he
examined me and asked me some questions. Then he said that there was no way
that the MRI was mine because there was no physical proof suggesting that it
was. I asked him what kind of symptoms was he looking for. He said that I would
be walking a long and my legs would fall out from under me. That happened one
time when I was walking down a stairway at work. I felt as though there was
something wrong with me. Perhaps from the pain I had had for so long. As soon
as it happened I asked my heavenly father to heal me from whatever caused it.
The surgeon said that I would drop things. That happened to me one time. I felt
like there was something wrong and asked God to heal me from whatever caused
it. The surgeon said that I would urinate on myself. That had happened a few
times. I felt as though something was wrong with me and I asked God to heal me.
My answer to the surgeon was that God ‘kept’ me. He takes care of me. I assured
him that the MRI was mine. He made an order for me to have a more extensive
test done which involved dye being put directly into my spine. That test showed
that there was more wrong with me then the MRI did.

I had three herniated disk, spinal canal stenosis, spinal
cord impingement in not one but two areas, bone spurs, and several pinched and
damaged nerves; not to mention there was no longer a curve in my cervical
spine. As soon as the surgeon told me that I was going to have surgery I was
enveloped in peace. I knew that I was in God’s hands and that I would be
alright. I had to wear a neck brace before I had surgery because I was at high
risk of becoming paralyzed from the neck down. The surgeon said that all it
would take was a minor fender bender or falling down. I knew I would be alright
but I did not tempt God. I wore the neck brace until I had surgery and wore
another one for three months after I had surgery. Praise God the surgery was
successful.

There have been many other times that God has healed me and
protected me. He is my sufficiency in all things and will be for you also if
you simply believe that he gave his only begotten Son to die on the cross so
that you can receive forgiveness from your sins, and your body be made whole.
And so that you will spend your eternal life in heaven and not hell, and
receive the holy spirit. I could write a book on what God has done for me. I am
not bragging. God is no respecter of persons. He loves us all equally. He is a
powerful and loving God, a merciful God. Give him your heart and accept him as
your heavenly father and God. He will protect you. He will heal you. He will
lead you and guide you. He will take care of you. He will be your sufficiency
in ALL THINGS.

Have you ever sat on the beach
and tried to count the waves,
thought about their enormous strength
and how they never really go away;
Rolling, tumbling upon the sandy beach
with only a moment to stay,
bowing down underneath your feet
and slowly creeping away?
Then coming back with a might thrush
splashing water into your face,
Have you ever sat on the beach
and tried to count the waves?
Have you ever tried to count
the many memories of your life,
One living vividly within your mind
another so far away it's impossible to find?
What if you could mingle all your memories into one
and know the better memories of life would overcome
The strife, the pain, the sorrow, the rain
would all soon be dried up
By the sunshine in your heart
which is as solid as a coconut?
Memories in your mind are like waves
splashed upon the earth,
Some treat them with indifference
while others seek their birth.

You Are Forgiven

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son , that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16-17